Anonymous wrote:I'm seeking a sanity check on whether these things are reasonable. I'm most interested in hearing from people who are well off but not rich, with adult kids in their twenties who graduated from college without debt and have good jobs.

1. How much does helping your 20-something kids affect your budget and retirement plans? I'm not as interested in hearing from people who have $10m or more, but from people still working and saving for retirement. Are you willing to keep working after 65 to be able to pay for grad school, weddings, down payments, etc?

2. How do you resolve disagreements with your spouse about how much support to provide adult kids and at what cost? What would you do if your spouse were spending down assets on adult kids without your blessing, which you didn't give because you legitimately believe you couldn't afford it?

3. When your adult kid visits, do you cover 100% of the costs of their trip? For example, do you pay for their airline ticket, groceries, meals out, etc?

4. When you vacation with your adult kids, do you also cover 100% of the costs? Not just the housing, but for example, do you pay for their round of golf, ski lift ticket, or other activities?

5. An adult kid who has graduated and is employed visits and makes their own plans. Is it reasonable for them to expect to be able to take your car while they visit? And if there is a schedule conflict?

6. Would you help with graduate school, law school, medical school, or an MBA if it required you to keep working later than planned? If you do it for one kid, do you need to do it for their younger siblings, too?

1. I would not retire early and sacrifice additional help I could give them (like help for a down payment which I think makes a huge difference in life and part of grad school), but I would not delay retirement (except if I absolutely still love working but that’s another question). Wedding costs are not part of my equation. Hopefully they will have small weddings and cover most of it.

2. I would 100% not be ok with spouse making any big financial decisions without me. That would result in a big fight. We have separate accounts for discretionary spendings so if he wanted to make somewhat big gifts (like stupidly expensive show or sports tickets or restaurant) he could. Our joint savings are joint decisions.

3. And 4. Covering Adult kid : if still student and coming home yes. If he/she goes to see on a trip with friends I will help but as part of a broad discussion on expenses for the year. Post student life : our kids graduated undergrad without debt and are working so they pay their tickets to come visit us. Once here we pay for all groceries and dinners. But if we go on a faraway trip together we will cover a chunk of their tickets and hotels (but they will pay a % of it based on their revenues). They are still young and without kids. When they have young kids and are burdened by kid daycare we probably will help again. We don’t systematically pay for all activities. If it is something we want to do we invite or cover a big chunk. If it is something they want to do they should pay or offer to pay. They also invite us sometimes, pick up the smaller bills or cheaper tickets, as a polite gesture.

We do expect them to offer to pay some activities or drinks and probably made comments to create that habit when they were teenagers but I forgot how exactly. We discuss budget, it is not a taboo. And they don’t see us as open wallets.

5. Yes we share cars but we have priority.

6. As per 1. Not if it pushes us past retirement age I think. But we will help all of them equally with grad school (like maybe 50% of cost?). Key thing as others have flagged is the most important rule is to be totally fair and transparent between siblings

I got them through college so they could be self sufficient.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm seeking a sanity check on whether these things are reasonable. I'm most interested in hearing from people who are well off but not rich, with adult kids in their twenties who graduated from college without debt and have good jobs.

1. How much does helping your 20-something kids affect your budget and retirement plans? I'm not as interested in hearing from people who have $10m or more, but from people still working and saving for retirement. Are you willing to keep working after 65 to be able to pay for grad school, weddings, down payments, etc?

2. How do you resolve disagreements with your spouse about how much support to provide adult kids and at what cost? What would you do if your spouse were spending down assets on adult kids without your blessing, which you didn't give because you legitimately believe you couldn't afford it?

3. When your adult kid visits, do you cover 100% of the costs of their trip? For example, do you pay for their airline ticket, groceries, meals out, etc?

4. When you vacation with your adult kids, do you also cover 100% of the costs? Not just the housing, but for example, do you pay for their round of golf, ski lift ticket, or other activities?

5. An adult kid who has graduated and is employed visits and makes their own plans. Is it reasonable for them to expect to be able to take your car while they visit? And if there is a schedule conflict?

6. Would you help with graduate school, law school, medical school, or an MBA if it required you to keep working later than planned? If you do it for one kid, do you need to do it for their younger siblings, too?

Yes, DD got into Harvard Law. It's now $121K. There is no way she can afford that, so she will do fed unsubsidized loans and we will help with the rest. We are balancing it out with sibling (whom we paid for college) with a matching amount for a down payment for a condo

Yes, IMO if you help one kid you have to offer the other something similar, when it's this significant. If one doesn't want/need grad school, then you help with a down payment.

And yes, I would work another year or two to help ensure my kids can get the education they want and not incur massive debt. Otherwise the only people going into MD/Law/PA/DPT/MBA would be rich kids.
And we need and deserve more diversity than that for our society.

If my kid planned to go into BigLaw either way, I might lend them the money to go law school (interest free), but it's not like they are out saving the world and they are going to earn big $$$s. Same for an MBA which really isn't needed these days and more likely results in just trying to earn a bunch of $$$s.

I wouldn't pay for an MBA (I take that back from the previous post). Because once you are ready, most people can find a way to get their company to pay---you do a 2-3 year, every other weekend program, while working full time. If you truly need one, the company will pay and you can still work 40 hours

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm seeking a sanity check on whether these things are reasonable. I'm most interested in hearing from people who are well off but not rich, with adult kids in their twenties who graduated from college without debt and have good jobs.

1. How much does helping your 20-something kids affect your budget and retirement plans? I'm not as interested in hearing from people who have $10m or more, but from people still working and saving for retirement. Are you willing to keep working after 65 to be able to pay for grad school, weddings, down payments, etc?

2. How do you resolve disagreements with your spouse about how much support to provide adult kids and at what cost? What would you do if your spouse were spending down assets on adult kids without your blessing, which you didn't give because you legitimately believe you couldn't afford it?

3. When your adult kid visits, do you cover 100% of the costs of their trip? For example, do you pay for their airline ticket, groceries, meals out, etc?

4. When you vacation with your adult kids, do you also cover 100% of the costs? Not just the housing, but for example, do you pay for their round of golf, ski lift ticket, or other activities?

5. An adult kid who has graduated and is employed visits and makes their own plans. Is it reasonable for them to expect to be able to take your car while they visit? And if there is a schedule conflict?

6. Would you help with graduate school, law school, medical school, or an MBA if it required you to keep working later than planned? If you do it for one kid, do you need to do it for their younger siblings, too?

Yes, DD got into Harvard Law. It's now $121K. There is no way she can afford that, so she will do fed unsubsidized loans and we will help with the rest. We are balancing it out with sibling (whom we paid for college) with a matching amount for a down payment for a condo

Yes, IMO if you help one kid you have to offer the other something similar, when it's this significant. If one doesn't want/need grad school, then you help with a down payment.

And yes, I would work another year or two to help ensure my kids can get the education they want and not incur massive debt. Otherwise the only people going into MD/Law/PA/DPT/MBA would be rich kids.
And we need and deserve more diversity than that for our society.

If my kid planned to go into BigLaw either way, I might lend them the money to go law school (interest free), but it's not like they are out saving the world and they are going to earn big $$$s. Same for an MBA which really isn't needed these days and more likely results in just trying to earn a bunch of $$$s.

Sharing the perspective of what happens when support is uneven amongst siblings, if helpful.

I am one of four siblings. Parents are upper middle class. They made it clear to us that whatever college we wanted they would cover and we all did work study to help pay for incidentals. This did not result in my dad working past retirement but it was a financial strain because we all went to costly schools.

What’s interesting is the two oldest kids (myself included) knew we were 100% our own after college and pursued careers accordingly (grad school and family vacations not covered, although the parents did contribute to some of our wedding costs so maybe not 100%). The younger two did not receive this messaging and to this day (10 years post college for the youngest), they rely on my parents, who are retired and don’t really have the funds to do this. I am fully prepared to have to financially support my parents later in life and know the younger two won’t be able to contribute.

I used to be very salty about this dynamic, but as I became a parent, my parents have supported us with extensive time and help with the kids. I’m no longer salty because I realized they are just helping how they can for the kid (adult) in front of them. However I’m glad they had stricter boundaries for me because it ultimately served me very well in the long run.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You all are well off. Upper 10%. That means 90% who love their families can't do this.

Not true. I'm a super saver, great at planning and budgeting. Not well off yet, but my kid is also working while in college and we will be well off together. I know exactly where every dollar needs to go to make the most good. I try to double the pay as it comes in and then we spend it on important things.

Most people on DCUM seem to forget that kids can work to help with college. given the min wages in most ares (DCUM and other cities), most kids can earn $15/hour. That's $6-7K for a summer working only 40 hours (you can still babysit/find a 2nd job for the summer/weekends if needed). Add in 8-10 hours for the school year per week and xmas and spring break and a kid can earn $10K easily to help with college.